State unveils elaborate marijuana tracking system

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In less than a month... Recreational marijuana becomes legal in Colorado. And now the state has a new way to track legal pot from seed to sale, to help keep a close eye on retailers' every move-- and ultimately ensure your safety.

The new system called "MITS" -- Marijuana Inventory Tracking Solutions" -- will use radio frequency identification or "RFID" technology with tags bearing 24-digit codes attached to every plant and every package.

Regulators will be able to walk into stores, point an RFID gun at plants and product, and make sure everything is accounted for.

"In a closed system, what you're really trying to do is make sure that's not being diverted other than by lawful sale, and you're also preventing people from bringing in from the black market or gray market product to be sold through the regulated system," says Ron Kammerzell, marijuana enforcement division senior director.

This is just one part of the regulatory framework.

Pot shops will also have surveillance cameras along with scheduled and unscheduled compliance checks.

Once someone makes the purchase and leaves the store, the tracking stops.

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Having been through the training for MITS – this system is incredible… Incredibly convoluted and burdensome. The tags they talk about are .45 per plant, and can never be re-used. The data entry is all manual. Everyone MUST be compliant by December 31st or they cannot continue their operations and the system isn’t even 100% completed. Every sale must be accounted for and nothing integrates with point of sale systems yet. My estimate was that you could employ someone full time to maintain your shop/grow’s MITS data with as much as they want this stuff tracked.

SloCatch

I have no strong feelings either way but do know the same concerns were voiced when bar code was introduced. Now a business can’t manage inventory without it, it would be too expensive to not utilize it. This system sounds like it might hold the Cartel at bay which in my mind is a good thing. It will be just a short matter of time that the data entry aspect will be automated, that always seams the last part of implementation processes. I for one don’t want the Cartel in my neighborhood and feel that a huge amount of our money is presently headed south. This might keep some of it here in our economy. It might even keep our present leadership honest. Don’t you agree Paul Lopez and John Hinkenlooper?

More expense for the consumer,,every dollar you add in regulations gives green entrepreneurs a profit margin to work with,,considering how successful law enforcement and incarceration has been at controlling illegal growers and sellers and the damage it has done to our society I would like to wish you luck.

Hint: You cannot sell a substance that can be produced for less than $1 per gram for $15>$20 per gram and corner the market.